The Hermit of the Menez-Bré

I was told that a long time ago lived a hermit in the Rûn-ar-Goff manor, on the western slope of the mountain called the Menez-Bré.

This hermit was named Gwenc'hlan. I was also told that he was a prophet, that he could read in the stars and those who went to consult him never came back without some certainties concerning the fate of humanity. Gwenc'hlan did not resemble anyone else. His very physique was not like those of other mortals. It appeared as if a supernatural light was shining inside him. It was as strange a light as we can see during the night, near the walls of graveyards.

And yet, Gwenc'hlan was a man, a person, as you and me. He ate bread, drank water, or cider when he had some, and spoke the language of other people.

Only it was told that his head was unlikely moveable on his shoulders, therefore he didn't have to turn his body around in order to see behind him. Thus, nothing could escape his gaze : his eyes were everywhere at once. He was like the Menez, which, without moving, observes the sky and its four horizons.

One thing was for certain, he could talk the language of animals as well, as he was often seen talking to them. The crows never went back to their homes in the woods, in the evening, without visiting him, thereby making their report on what they observed during the day. The passing birds stopped on his windowsill and told him of every unusual events they witnessed in the countries they had overflown. The foxes and even the wolves came inside his yard, and Gwenc'hlan would listen to them carefully when they had something important to tell him.

One year, he was informed by the birds that an innumerable troop of Saxon warriors was about to barge into the Brittany's coasts. Disdaining to answer to those who were harassing him with questions, he buckled his war harness on, girded his heavy sword which, usually was lying in his bedroom, and still quietly, his face even more fathomless than ever before, he went up the mountain by his own. Once at the top, he began raising his heavy sword into the air and around his head, shouting and bestiring himself with a fierce ardour, as if he was fighting thousands of invisible attackers. This strange show lasted from dawn until dusk : seemingly relentless, he was scraping this way, the metal of his sword flaming with the sun rays. His strikes were so brutal and so fast, it looked like a perpetual burst of lightnings from below.

When the night was close, he stopped his fight, drew rain water from the hollow of a rock and washed his sweating face. Then, he came down from the mountain.

His people were staring at him with a concerned look, wondering what he had accomplished. He read in their eyes that they didn't understand. So, with a gesture, he showed them the sky and the faraway sea streaming the dark purples of the sunset. The clouds looked like they were dragging their fringes into blood, and the wind coming from north was caring repugnant odors, similar to the ones exalting from great battlefields, after the last warrior of the enemy army fled into darkness and fear.

And by this smell of blood and death, they understood what the hermit of the Menez-Bré accomplished : Gwenc'hlan had exterminated those who wished to invade the lands of Brittany to the last one.

This feat made him even more famous than before. New travelers came to find him. Oftentimes Gwenc'hlan didn't even talk to them. Being able to see him was enough. They went away, comforted by the strange light emanating from this man, who wasn't like anyone else. And others came to consult him : he answered them with words difficult to understand. The hermit of the Menez-Bré could see things from here and things from the Other World. He was the visionary of an unknown world, and he was respected as if they could sense that he had powers over beings and things, as if he had the power of moving the great stones which scattered the land, on the shining sunset side of the mountain.

One day, a sea eagle came to announce him that his fateful hour was about to come. He snatched a feather from the bird's wing and with it he wrote what would become his last will and testament :

“I will disappear”, he said, “and I do not want my grave to be sought. It will not be in the power of anyone to know the place where I will lie beneath the earth. I want to sleep in peace inside a grave unknown to all. Do not search further for my books and the secrets within them. I am taking them with me to use them as a pillow inside my cold tomb. As for my wealth, which is tremendous, I would gladly offer it to the Bretons, but if I do so, I would only give them a grim gift. May the Bretons keep their poverty, as it is the source of all joy and bravery”.

Having done thus, he folded the paper on which he had just written, and threw it into the wind. Then, when the night had come, he set off towards the Menez. Behind him were the twelve carts of Rûn-ar-Goff, loaded with tons of gold, silver and gems. Gwenc'hlan had taken his precautions : he had blindfolded the eyes of the cart drivers so that they couldn't see where they were heading. They traveled this way, blindly, adjusting their driving to the horses' one, only avoiding the carts to fall in the pits. They told, the day after that, that they had to accomplish a very long journey. In fact, Gwenc'hlan, to outwit them, made them drive several times around the mountain. And at a certain moment, the carriages abruptly stopped. Without a way of knowing how, the carts had been emptied of their loading. It was told that all of Gwenc'hlan’s treasures had been engulfed in a bottomless well. Whereafter, the drivers, still blindfolded, heard a sort of threnody rising into the night : it was a psalmody, like the ones of the ancient times, sad and serene at the same time, violent and insinuating as the songs of the bards who were accompanying our ancestors in the battlefields. At last, they could hear a sigh, and then nothing else. The carriage drivers removed their blindfolds. They didn't see Gwenc'hlan after : he seemed to have passed out of sight into the night and the mist that was surrounding the Menez-Bré.

But, during the evenings of autumn and winter, and mostly during the dark months, we can hear a voice in the wind blowing on the mountain. And this voice says :

“I am Gwenc'hlan, the hermit of the Menez-Bré, the one who helped you when he was alive. Now I am within a cold tomb, somewhere in the soil of Brittany, yet still I protect the mountain against all the warriors of the world who would want to take it…”

And the wind continues to shriek onto the rocks, along the mountain slopes as the night goes by, into the mist and clouds, like a great shadow spreading on the land.